Last three Uighers released from Guantanamo

The BBC is reporting that the U.S. has released the final three ethnic Uighur Chinese nationals that were being detained in the Guantanamo detention facility in Cuba.

None of the three were considered a risk, but the U.S. had refused to release the members of the mainly Muslim, Turkic-speaking minority to their home in the Xinjiang region in western China out of fears they would be mistreated by the Chinese government which has a history of cracking down on Uighur dissidents.

The three were instead voluntarily resettled in Bratislava, the capitol of Slovakia, which had previously accepted several Uighur detainees.

From the article…

“These three are the last ethnic Uighur Chinese nationals to be
transferred,” said Pentagon press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby.

“This transfer and resettlement constitutes a significant
milestone in our effort to close the detention facility at Guantanamo
Bay,” his statement said, thanking the Slovak government for its
“humanitarian gesture”.

Guantanamo still houses 155 prisoners, many of which were never charged with any crime and/or cleared for release years ago.